Random Question Thread: Tech

[Obiron]

What fucking program is this?



It's like a fucking watermark in the top right corner of my monitor and it overlaps anything that isn't in fullscreen mode, and I can't find any thing in my Task Manager or System Tray that isn't supposed to be there. Driving me insane because it wasn't there last night.

EDIT: Also has nothing to do with my monitor settings.

EDIT: Also 1337th post.

According to Google images, it's a face!



Seriously though, never seen that before. It looks similar to a speedometer . Have you added any desktop gadgets to Windows recently? CPU monitoring? Maybe overclocking software?

[Draygon]

My current PC has given me booting trouble over the past two days or so. It wouldn't bother me normally, as I have all the parts for my new one ready to be built as soon as I have the time, but I am planning on giving this one to my father as a hand me down. There's a few symptoms, only one of which has occurred in the past.

Won't resume out of sleep mode. This occurred previously, however it was only the monitor, and it just randomly stopped happening. This time however, the power light will continue blinking, and none of the hardware will turn on. If I press the power button, nothing happens. If I hold it, it won't stop blinking / turn off. I manually have to flip the switch on the back, wait a minute, flip it again, and then start my computer. After doing this, however, it will turn on for about two seconds (You can hear everything power up) and then turn off. On the second try, it will always boot. Once windows begins loading though, the video will crap out and I'll get DVI no signal, until it kicks back in when the desktop is loaded.

[Niya]

Is there a way to set up MSI Afterburner to automatically capture screenshots every x seconds/minutes? I'm trying to figure out a way to get a decent catalog of pictures during events/boss fights without having to stop and take them.

Not with afterburner, but IrfanView has a screen capture function that allows continuous shots in a certain interval.

[Kuishen]

Seriously though, never seen that before. It looks similar to a speedometer . Have you added any desktop gadgets to Windows recently? CPU monitoring? Maybe overclocking software?

I checked desktop gadgets, and I haven't messed with any overclocking shit ever. It's gone now though after I shut down my comp for the night. Don't even fucking know....

[Jakson]

Here's a dumb question:

In a single pulley such as
http://docs.engineeringtoolbox.com/d...7/pulley-2.png
does the amount of force required to lift the weight change by the angle the rope is pulled? In other words, if I were to pull straight down, would I be doing more or less work than if I were to pull the rope at a 90 degree angle?

[Seraph]

Does anyone have any good information on mobile video cards? I have been looking into the GeForce 500M and GeForce 600M series cards, but I am still somewhat on a loss for what cards are really better. For me personally, price wasn't necessarily as important as performance and general running temperature. I plan on using it for gaming, can use Diablo III as the benchmark is that is helpful. My 5 year old machine just isn't cutting it anymore...

I know that some of the base card stats can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...ocessing_units

However, I am not very well versed in what any of those numbers really mean. I know that somewhere on the boards (that I could not find through search) there was a discussion of this before on standard cards, and that things like Core Speed are far more important than the amount of RAM on the card and so on. I have tried searching online, but I can never seem to find any good benchmark tests for mobile cards, just the standard card versions.

Some very specific questions I have:

- Any specific suggestions on mobile GPUs? I would like to stick with a Nvidia brand card, just because of the problems I have had with ATI in the past. Any reason I should change my mind?
- Is there anything special about the Nvidia 600M series 'Kepler architecture'? I know some of the 600M cards are just re-branded 500M cards, but does that make them inferior?
- How essential is the Nvidia 'Optimus' upgrade for a laptop GPU that is almost always plugged in? I know that it is mostly used for prolonging battery life, but does it make the card run cooler too?

Anyone have any insight and want to take me to school?

[Mellema]

Here's a dumb question:

In a single pulley such as
http://docs.engineeringtoolbox.com/d...7/pulley-2.png
does the amount of force required to lift the weight change by the angle the rope is pulled? In other words, if I were to pull straight down, would I be doing more or less work than if I were to pull the rope at a 90 degree angle?

From what I remember a single simple pulley only changes the direction of force, it doesn't amplify force. So the angle shouldn't change the force needed.

[Niya]

However, I am not very well versed in what any of those numbers really mean.

Those numbers actually don't really differ in "value" between a standard and a mobile card.
smaller structure size (what Wiki calls Fab (nm) ) -> better energy efficiency, the chip is smaller and in most cases produces less heat
RAM size doesn't really matter, since all decent mobile GPUs have 1GByte+ that's more than enough
what DOES matter is the bandwith between GPU and GRAM, or the bus width. Larger bus = more lanes between GPU and GRAM = faster transfers. Some low to mid range GPUs have such a small bus that the GRAM actually slows the GPU down...
GDDR is much faster than "standard" DDR RAM and optimized for use with GPUs, but as you might see in the wiki charts the manufacturers most of the time level that out with different bus sizes.

- Any specific suggestions on mobile GPUs? I would like to stick with a Nvidia brand card, just because of the problems I have had with ATI in the past. Any reason I should change my mind?

I think the choice between AMD and nVidia is more of a personal one. Only real difference other than raw performance values is that nVidia mastered smooth transition between their GPU and the integrated CPU graphic cores (see your optimus question)

- Is there anything special about the Nvidia 600M series 'Kepler architecture'? I know some of the 600M cards are just re-branded 500M cards, but does that make them inferior?

Like already mentioned, Kepler has smaller structure sizes (28 nanometers instead of 40 for Fermi), so i'd say if you can, get a Kepler GPU just for the reason of better thermal management.

- How essential is the Nvidia 'Optimus' upgrade for a laptop GPU that is almost always plugged in? I know that it is mostly used for prolonging battery life, but does it make the card run cooler too?

Optimus means that the integrated GPU of the processor handles all displays (internal and external) and that the nVidia chip just kicks in when performance is needed. In that case it renders the pictures instead of the IGPU and passes them through it, that way you get a seemless switch between IGP and separate chip. AMD chips can't do this (yet), most of the time you have a physical switch on the laptop and when you use it the screen flickers for 5-10sec until the change between IGP and AMD GPU is done. Some programs don't like this switching and just crash/hang, so you shouldn't switch around when you already have stuff running.

[Jakson]

ty mellema

[Khamsin]

From what I remember a single simple pulley only changes the direction of force, it doesn't amplify force. So the angle shouldn't change the force needed.

That is true, however, if you are using your weight to help you, then it would matter. (Only insofar as how much of your weight contributes to the force on the rope. All of the force on the rope is transmitted to the load. So if you, matter-of-factly, put 100 lbs of tension on the rope, then 100 lbs is the force acting on the load, regardless of how much of that is your muscles and how much of that is your weight, or other factors.)

[LidenbokValour]

edit: Never mind sorry!

[Isiolia]

Does anyone have any good information on mobile video cards?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Compari...rds.130.0.html is usually where I go to research them.

[Not Kuno]

Ok so.. A friend had a working computer that plays starcraft 2 just fine. His brother (who does PCs for a living, etc, but is also a dick and on vacation now) changed his PC into a new tower with a shit ton more fans cause his old tower was too hot. Now when he plays sc2, after a few minutes of being in the game (even if not playing a game), his pc turns off and restarts.

His windows is the same, drivers is the same, all parts are the same.. what the heck could be causing this? Google is way too vague about this sort of thing and it seems like such a specific thing that it cant be anything too complicated.

Any ideas?

[Elizara]

Ok, diagnosis with my PC again. This is windows XP of course, haven't upgraded.

I have been getting bsd's and can't get the pc to start for hours.

According to WhoCrashed, the crash is in ntkrnlpa.exe when it shows one. I'm trying to figure out wtf is going on here. There's two memory chips in the machine, one is a little older than the other.

Proly going to take this to a shop, but..this is the third time this week. This time it was happening when I was watching some stuff on CR; besides I might have a bad memory chip, what could be going wrong?

[LidenbokValour]

I've just got a new system and there some issues that are bothering me.

My basic specs :

AMD FX-6 3.3GHz
8GB DDR3 Memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti
60GB Solid State Drive
1TB Hard Drive

I've installed all drivers, all updates but for some reason my pc isn't as crisp and fast as I would expect a new PC to be for example: slow start up, internet browser is clunky and slow and well when it comes to gaming thats another issue.

Basically I can see these very faint ripples when I am playing games sort of like when you touch water and you get that ripple effect a little bit like that and on top of that I get FPS drops every so often.. I am running Aion on max settings at 55-60 FPS but when I move or enter a high conjested area it just hits the floor.. I my drivers are up to date I know for sure I installed the latest drivers on nVidia's Geforce website!

Can anyone help me with this please? thanks!

[hey]

Ok, diagnosis with my PC again. This is windows XP of course, haven't upgraded.

I have been getting bsd's and can't get the pc to start for hours.

According to WhoCrashed, the crash is in ntkrnlpa.exe when it shows one. I'm trying to figure out wtf is going on here. There's two memory chips in the machine, one is a little older than the other.

Proly going to take this to a shop, but..this is the third time this week. This time it was happening when I was watching some stuff on CR; besides I might have a bad memory chip, what could be going wrong?

Run memtest86 if you think the issue is ram.

[Isiolia]

Ok so.. A friend had a working computer that plays starcraft 2 just fine. His brother (who does PCs for a living, etc, but is also a dick and on vacation now) changed his PC into a new tower with a shit ton more fans cause his old tower was too hot. Now when he plays sc2, after a few minutes of being in the game (even if not playing a game), his pc turns off and restarts.

His windows is the same, drivers is the same, all parts are the same.. what the heck could be causing this? Google is way too vague about this sort of thing and it seems like such a specific thing that it cant be anything too complicated.

Any ideas?

Check to make sure all the parts are seated right. Try running a memory test as well, just to see - could be that in the process of shifting to the new case a memory module got zapped. Also, check the temperatures (though I'd imagine this was done if the reason for a case transfer was heat). Could be that the CPU cooler got shifted while moving the board and isn't actually cooling it well. Is it bluescreening or anything first? Anything show up in Windows logs?

[Not Kuno]

Check to make sure all the parts are seated right. Try running a memory test as well, just to see - could be that in the process of shifting to the new case a memory module got zapped. Also, check the temperatures (though I'd imagine this was done if the reason for a case transfer was heat). Could be that the CPU cooler got shifted while moving the board and isn't actually cooling it well. Is it bluescreening or anything first? Anything show up in Windows logs?

Apparently he heard a popping sound when it turned off, but it stopped happening or something (when I went over I didnt hear it). I didn't check the logs but I'll do that and check the memory. It wasn't blue screening, it just restarted instantly.

[LidenbokValour]

Okay so I asked someone for advice about why my 3 days old top end PC cannot run games like Rift, Aion and even FFXI on max stats without any frame drops of weird little freezes even general use of the pc is rather slow.

His advice was to get :

http://www.misco.co.uk/Product/Q2880...er-Supply-Unit

Because my PSU isn't high enough for Geforce GTX 560 Ti.. I have 450W.

Is this sound advice? I'd like to make sure before I splash out on 100 quid..

I know only having 3.3 GHz isn't helping but there's nothing I can really do about that, my motherboard doesn't OC to anything higher according to the builders.

[Intrinsic]

Okay so I asked someone for advice about why my 3 days old top end PC cannot run games like Rift, Aion and even FFXI on max stats without any frame drops of weird little freezes even general use of the pc is rather slow.

His advice was to get :

http://www.misco.co.uk/Product/Q2880...er-Supply-Unit

Because my PSU isn't high enough for Geforce GTX 560 Ti.. I have 450W.

Is this sound advice? I'd like to make sure before I splash out on 100 quid..

I know only having 3.3 GHz isn't helping but there's nothing I can really do about that, my motherboard doesn't OC to anything higher according to the builders.

From the limited information you supplied, your recommended wattage on EPSC was 444. That doesn't include any overclocking, fans, aftermarket coolers, extra PCI cards, or optical drive. So yes, a 450w PSU is not going to cut it, especially if it isn't high quality to begin with. You can never tell for sure what is causing problems with your system, but even if your PSU isn't the current problem, it will become one in the future if it's not taken care of ASAP.

I have never used a single Antec PSU, so I can't really remark on their quality, but I would recommend checking my favorite PSU review site, jonnyguru.com. Even if he hasn't reviewed that specific PSU, he's probably done one in that line, so that should give you a good idea.